Katharine Mary Saunders (4 May 1960 – 21 April 2023) was an English writer, actress and journalist. She won the Betty Trask Award and the Costa Children's Book Award and was twice shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

Early life and education Katharine Mary Saunders was born on 4 May 1960 to an Anglo Catholic family in London, the eldest of six children. Her father was public relations advocate Basil Saunders, and her mother was journalist Betty (née Smith) Saunders.Brown, Andrew (9 April 1997). "Obituary: Betty Saunders", The Independent.Traverse-Healy, Tim (19 June 1998). "Obituary: Basil Saunders". The Independent. She was educated at the Camden School for Girls.

Career Television Saunders worked as an actress through her twenties. Her work included an appearance as a policewoman dated by Rodney Trotter in an Only Fools and Horses episode in 1982.Aled Jones with Good Morning Sunday. BBC. 6 December 2009. She also played Caroline, a friend of Penny's in a Christmas Special episode of Just Good Friends in 1984 and was a regular contributor to radio and television, with appearances on the Radio 4 programmes Woman's Hour, Start the Week and Kaleidoscope.author profile at Random House She was, with Sandi Toksvig, a guest on the first episode of the long-running news quiz programme Have I Got News for You.HIGNFY – episode 1/1 at Comedy.Co.UK The BBC children's series Belfry Witches was based on her series of children's books about two mischief-making witches.

Writing Saunders wrote for newspapers and magazines in the UK, including The Sunday Times, Sunday Express, Daily Telegraph, She and Cosmopolitan.Author Spotlight at Random House. She wrote many novels, such as Wild Young Bohemians, and also co-wrote Catholics and Sex (1992) with Peter Stanford,Stanford, Peter (1999). Cardinal Hume and the Changing Face of English Catholicism. A&C Black. 1999. Bibliographic data. who was then editor of the Catholic Herald. Saunders and Stanford later presented a television series based on the book on Channel 4.

Saunders won the annual Costa Children's Book Award for Five Children on the Western Front (2014), a contribution to the classic fantasy series that E. Nesbit inaugurated in 1902 with Five Children and It. She was also a contributor to the authorised Winnie-the-Pooh sequel, The Best Bear in All the World. Her children's novel The Land of Neverendings has been shortlisted for the 2019 Carnegie Medal, as was Five Children on the Western Front in 2016.

Personal life and death Saunders married Philip Wells in 1985; they had a son and later divorced. Their son died by suicide when he was 19 years old.

Saunders had multiple sclerosis. Her health declined in the years after her son's death, but she continued to write until the end of her life. She died from cancer at her home in Archway, London, on 21 April 2023, at the age of 62.

Selected books

Novels The Prodigal Father (1986) - Won The Betty Trask Award in 1986 Storm in the Citadel (1989) Night Shall Overtake Us (1993) Wild Young Bohemians (1995) Lily-Josephine (1998) The Marrying Game (2002) Bachelor Boys (2004) Crooked Castle (2013) Mariana (2013)

The Laetitia Rodd Mysteries The Secrets of Wishtide (2016) The Case of the Wandering Scholar (2019) The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden (2021)

Children's books A Spell of Witches (1999) The Belfry Witches (omnibus) (2003) Cat and the Stinkwater War (2003) The Little Secret (2006) Beswitched (2010) Magicalamity (2011) The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (2012) The Curse of The Chocolate Phoenix (2013) Five Children on the Western Front (2014) The Land of Neverendings (2017)

Filmography

Film YearTitleRoleNotes1979Birth of the BeatlesGirl Fan

Television YearTitleRoleNotes1975You Must Be Joking!Unknown2 episodes1976A Place to HideReceptionistEpisode: "The Contact"1978AngelsBrenda Cotteral12 episodes1979PlayhouseJennyEpisode: "The Daughters of Albion"1979A Family AffairDonna3 episodes1982Only Fools and HorsesSandraEpisode: "The Long Legs of the Law"1984Just Good FriendsCarolineEpisode:Christmas Special

References

External links